Cas Coovadia, sherpa for B20 South Africa 2025, opened the Sherpa’s panel by reflecting on the country’s leadership of the B20 process  The B20 is the G20’s official dialogue forum for the global business community. As its “sherpa”, Coovadia oversees the work of the B20’s eight task forces—bringing together business leaders from across the G20—and ensures their policy recommendations are delivered to the G20 presidency.

“We didn’t know what we were in for. It was the first time we were doing this. We took the view that we would learn from Brazil,” he said, noting that Brazil’s 2024 sherpa, Constanza Negri, helped to facilitate a smooth handover, in addition to extending support in the early days of South Africa’s presidency.

Brazil’s support was crucial

“When we started, I could count on the fingers of one hand the CEOs in South Africa that knew anything about the B20. We got Constanza to address a webinar of 150 CEOs and from then on, the support of South African business has been phenomenal,” he said, pointing to the many leaders and executives who stepped forward to chair or join taskforces following this initial engagement.

He noted that strong engagement in the B20 process by the business community in South Africa and the wider continent has given Africa’s voice real weight in negotiations. “The decision right upfront to ensure that we put Africa at the centre of the B20 was the correct one. We have succeeded in putting the continent at the table of decision makers,” he said.

The B20 South Africa 2025 produced 30 actionable recommendations across eight taskforces, all aimed at advancing inclusive, sustainable, and resilient growth. The overarching themes were energy transition, trade and investment, digital transformation, employment and skills, financing for development, and Africa’s integration into global value chains.

Negri noted that the recommendations reflect both continuity and evolution from Brazil’s list. She welcomed the changes, citing the need for pragmatism. “We cannot be naive to think the content of the recommendations will always be the same. We have to think about staying relevant. The external context has changed and B20 had to look into that,” she said.

Negri said that the B20 gives the private sector a unique platform to build enduring partnerships with the public sector – partnerships that can extend well beyond the usual political cycles that determine the government of the day.

“What we are saying is that beyond the formal presidency of one year, we as the private sector — not we individuals, but the private sector – will be there even if governments change. So it’s a big structural opportunity that we have in terms of private sector cooperation on this B20 agenda,” she noted.

Business can build bridges in a fractured world

With the US government absent from G20 deliberations, Gary Litman sees American businesses as critical to sustaining bonds across borders. The incoming Sherpa for B20 USA 2026 and senior vice president of global initiatives at the US Chamber of Commerce told delegates that American companies have cultivated “tremendous friendships” across the globe — positioning business as a bridge builder in turbulent geopolitical times.

“The US chamber of commerce is the largest business federation in the world and we have been involved in the B20 from its inception. We have forged tremendous friendships across all the business federations. We understand each other. Our job is to make sure that politicians in G20 hear consistently a very clear message from the business community,” he noted

He commended South Africa’s leadership over the B20 process, noting that attending the forum also afforded him an opportunity to experience South Africa’s economic dynamism firsthand. “For me, South Africa’s leadership was an opportunity to learn about Africa, to discover it. Our conclusion is very simple: the sophistication, the level of ambition, and the knowledge of the South African business community is incredible,” he noted.

“I’m coming away thinking the distinction between emerging and advanced (economies), global south and global north, is not that important. South African companies have global ambitions just like American companies and Brazilian companies. And we are all committed to the same thing: accelerating the real economic growth in our countries and for global businesses. We have very common views which makes developing recommendations easy,” he noted. 

With the US hosting the next G20 summit, Litman said the forum has “come full circle.” The US hosted the very first G20 summit in Washington in November 2008 in response to the global  financial crisis. “We have learned a lot and we have learned how to develop recommendations in a much more precise and direct way and speak to politicians and the wider society on behalf of business.”

Global issues demand global action

Coovadia noted that challenges once thought confined to the global south are now surfacing in advanced economies as well.  “What we’ve seen is that what used to be issues in the global south like growth issues, inclusion, dissatisfaction among the populace because they are not benefiting from economic growth, are now becoming global issues,” he said.

What is happening in Africa, is happening elsewhere and leaders have realised they need a global strategy to tackle these challenges, he argued. “The reason we’ve had agreement among B20 businesspeople that Africa needs to be at the centre is that they have seen the synergies between Africa’s growth and development and the growth and development of the world.”

“Africa has the arable land, the mineral resources, everything that we need to move towards a cleaner climate, it has a youthful population. All of that if properly leveraged and developed is to the benefit of the world. If we implement the recommendations (of the B20) we will see the impact. That impact will obviously be on the continent, but it will also contribute towards (dealing with) the challenges that the globe needs to deal with,” he said.

He underscored the B20’s role as a bridge between the private sector and governments—a role he argued is more urgent than ever as politics and economics increasingly intertwin. “More and more we need to talk about the political-economy rather than the economy, because the line between politics and the economy is becoming blurred. That is why B20 is such an important forum,” Coovadia said.

“It is the only forum where business leaders from the north and south can sit and talk about global issues, what to do about them, and how business can begin to actually interact with governments to look at how politics impacts business,” he noted.